The first guy ended up being the best one. Didn't take the game-ending risk that the others did. I didn't think he was that bad anyway.

Yes. Some people on Facebook's Quiz Discussion Group were bemoaning the general knowledge level of the contestants (as you'd expect from a group of quizzing enthusiasts, some of whom seem quite bitter about having applied for Millionaire and gotten rejected), but in fact he played the format right and ended up going home with the most money out of all the contestants.

I like the new feature where you get to set the old £32k safety net at whichever question you want, before you see the question. I'm not aware of anyone suggesting it before but I think it's a good idea.

They now have six contestants in the studio rather than ten. Meh. It's easy to assume this is for budgetary reasons or cutbacks or whatever, but I think it's just that someone realised they only use two or three (maybe sometimes four) contestants in a show, so there had never been any good reason to have as many as ten. You might keep a totally useless but harmless feature if it was so important to the show's brand that you couldn't really change it now, but too-many-unused-contestants-on-Millionaire never really achieved that iconic left-half-of-the-Countdown-clock status.

The new "Ask The Host" lifeline. Not sure I like that one. At some point Clarkson is going to express a preference for answer A and the contestant will lose a lot of money because the answer was B. Obviously the contestant is choosing to play the question, anything the host says is purely advisory and the contestants will have been informed of that, but I can see it making things awkward. Then again, "Ask The Host" is in addition to the three original lifelines so it's not as if the contestant can complain that it's been made any harder than before.

This brings me to the main thing I'm surprised about - that they kept Phone-a-Friend. When Millionaire first started on 4th September 1998, Phone-a-Friend would have seemed a solid idea. But on that same day, Google was founded (yes, really) and now everyone has all the knowledge in the world at their fingertips.

The US version got rid of Phone-a-Friend years ago for this reason, and I'd assumed the UK reboot would do the same. Instead they've kept it, but all the phone-a-friends now have someone from the Millionaire production team sitting in their house making sure they're using nothing more than their own brainpower to assist the contestant. This seems an awful lot of trouble to go to - you've got six contestants, multiplied by the number of phone-a-friends each of them has, and you've got to have that many people go and sit in a house for a few hours and in all probability not have to do anything. Or do they bring the friends into the studio and happen not to mention they've done that, which would seem a lot easier?

On tonight's show, I was amazed at what they'd picked for the £16,000 question. "According to the Highway Code, what shape is the standard sign giving the order to 'Stop'?", the options being Pentagon, Hexagon, Heptagon or Octagon. I'd have said that was more of a £2,000 question. But the contestant didn't know it, his phone-a-friend didn't know it, and even Jeremy Clarkson wasn't sure, so have I just overestimated how common that knowledge is?

Finally, whoever is in charge of the typography for the on-screen graphics has got a lot to answer for. How do you even do that accidentally?

Clarkson is at least making it very clear how confident he is about his answers, and is clearly terrified of getting into the position you described. Not a lifeline to keep in future if the host isn't known for their general knowledge.

I thought Clarkson was warming into the role nicely yesterday. Having the first contestant who was clearly prepared to engage with him helped, but with both of them he was more friendly and encouraging than you'd necessarily expect. Will be interesting to see if that continues if they get another run of less successful contestants.

On tonight's show, I was amazed at what they'd picked for the £16,000 question. "According to the Highway Code, what shape is the standard sign giving the order to 'Stop'?", the options being Pentagon, Hexagon, Heptagon or Octagon. I'd have said that was more of a £2,000 question. But the contestant didn't know it, his phone-a-friend didn't know it, and even Jeremy Clarkson wasn't sure, so have I just overestimated how common that knowledge is?

As a non-driver, I would have been sure that it was B or D as I know it has 2 lines of symmetry. My gut feeling would be octagonal (and having looked it up, this appears to be right, unless I'm looking at US signs) but I wouldn't be sure.

I'm quite enjoying the new format for the reasons Graeme said. I was also amazed by everybody's lack of stop sign knowledge, just because I thought the symbol was so ubiquitous not just on the roads but on other signs, in software, etc etc. "When the fun stops STOP" and so on.

I’m not a huge fan of the two major changes. And what really annoys me is how the music cues are slightly changed from the original (for example, when the contestant gets the £1,000 question right, when the lights go back down the £2-£4k cue, not the £1-£2k cue, plays). That said, it’s good to see they’ve ditched the changes that were made in 2007 altogether.

I thought Clarkson hadn't been too bad as host, but that howler with the ibex question was unforgivable. As examples of What Not To Do As A Quiz Show Host go, saying (exact words) "I'm not even going to look at the screen" before confidently telling the contestant they've got the answer right must be somewhere near the top. Especially if that means you tell the contestant they've just won £32,000 then have to tell them that they've lost £15,000.

I thought Clarkson hadn't been too bad as host, but that howler with the ibex question was unforgivable. As examples of What Not To Do As A Quiz Show Host go, saying (exact words) "I'm not even going to look at the screen" before confidently telling the contestant they've got the answer right must be somewhere near the top. Especially if that means you tell the contestant they've just won £32,000 then have to tell them that they've lost £15,000.

As you say, a completely unforgivable mistake. Chris Tarrant didn't make this sort of error even once in nearly 600 episodes.

I don't think Clarkson was a particularly good host, either, he seemed bored with proceedings during large parts of it.

I thought Clarkson hadn't been too bad as host, but that howler with the ibex question was unforgivable. As examples of What Not To Do As A Quiz Show Host go, saying (exact words) "I'm not even going to look at the screen" before confidently telling the contestant they've got the answer right must be somewhere near the top. Especially if that means you tell the contestant they've just won £32,000 then have to tell them that they've lost £15,000.

As you say, a completely unforgivable mistake. Chris Tarrant didn't make this sort of error even once in nearly 600 episodes.

I don't think Clarkson was a particularly good host, either, he seemed bored with proceedings during large parts of it.

Shocking they allowed someone to wear a racist slogan on their top, clearly visible at 00:57

But yeah I also hadn't watched and so thanks for the link Gevin, it's absolutely terrible. I had kind of assumed he had said "well that's definitely the right answer, let's confirm it" rather than actually straight up told him in such an authoritative way it was correct as if it was the official ruling. Awkward as you like.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but is there any reason to keep the 30-second time limit on phone-a-friend? It made sense 20 years ago, when it was the only thing stopping the friend from leafing through reference books. But now they've got Security McSecurityface watching them, why not let them stay on the line for the whole duration of the question? Might make the lifeline more useful, and make better TV than "you've got 5 seconds" "er, what were the options again?"

Probably because "Ask The Expert" never really took off in the US version, which was basically a second phone-a-friend lifeline except the "friend" was an academic or someone like that. They video called them on Skype and had minutes of conversing with them. There was just no point, especially when it's Bill Nye the Science guy trying to answer a question on film actresses.

Say I was going on the show. I know a lot of very good quizzers, for example Ryan Taylor on this board, but I don't really consider them a "friend" as such (remember, this is hypothetical). However, I'd really like to use them as phone-a-friend. It's going to put them out to some degree - ideally I'd like them to bone up, but at the very least they need to be available for the phone call*. Now, an obvious thing to do is say "if I use you, you get x% of whatever you win on that question" - all good. Except now, it's completely in their interest to guess on that question if they don't know the answer (remember, they're not particularly a friend, so they're only really in it for the money) - they either get £0 (which they get if they don't answer, or get it wrong), or x% of £y if they get it right. I don't think anyone would go for it if you say "oh, but if you get it wrong, you have to pay me x% of £y" so that's probably off the table.

So instead you might say that if you call them, they get n% of the outcome of that question - so if you're on £16,000, they get x% of wherever you are after that question; if they say "dunno" then they get x% of £16k, if they guess wrong they get x% of £1k (if you fall back to there), if they get it right they get x% of £32k. The problem here is that it still seems to me that they are much more incentivised to guess because the values are lower to them (in the same way the contestant would be more inclined to guess on lower value questions than higher value ones).

Even a flat fee of £1000 for a right answer, for example, doesn't avoid the problem that it's still in their interest to guess if they don't know the answer.

So the question is: how do you incentivise a phone-a-friend who isn't actually a friend (i.e. who wouldn't care if you lost money)?

* - also out of interest, does anyone know how this works? Are the phone a friends actually all just out the back of the studio? Surely they don't actually send someone to sit with them all (how many friends are you allowed?) wherever they may be?

I always used to joke that they were at the back if the studio back when it was first on.

That's a belter.

What would you charge for an incorrect answer then? Come on, I want a proper agreement here, not a woolly answer like that. What would your full agreement be with a mercenary phone-a-friend? (I'm leaning towards thinking the solution is to literally just use friends.)

I always used to joke that they were at the back if the studio back when it was first on.

That's a belter.

This was 20 years ago. Jokes weren't as funny then. I basically invented the joke.

What would you charge for an incorrect answer then? Come on, I want a proper agreement here, not a woolly answer like that. What would your full agreement be with a mercenary phone-a-friend? (I'm leaning towards thinking the solution is to literally just use friends.)

I refrained from doing so because it depends on whether we allow the bet hedging that I mentioned above. We can work gradually towards this. We don't need the exact answer as the first move.

Say I was going on the show. I know a lot of very good quizzers, for example Ryan Taylor on this board, but I don't really consider them a "friend" as such (remember, this is hypothetical). However, I'd really like to use them as phone-a-friend. It's going to put them out to some degree - ideally I'd like them to bone up, but at the very least they need to be available for the phone call*. Now, an obvious thing to do is say "if I use you, you get x% of whatever you win on that question" - all good. Except now, it's completely in their interest to guess on that question if they don't know the answer (remember, they're not particularly a friend, so they're only really in it for the money) - they either get £0 (which they get if they don't answer, or get it wrong), or x% of £y if they get it right. I don't think anyone would go for it if you say "oh, but if you get it wrong, you have to pay me x% of £y" so that's probably off the table.

So instead you might say that if you call them, they get n% of the outcome of that question - so if you're on £16,000, they get x% of wherever you are after that question; if they say "dunno" then they get x% of £16k, if they guess wrong they get x% of £1k (if you fall back to there), if they get it right they get x% of £32k. The problem here is that it still seems to me that they are much more incentivised to guess because the values are lower to them (in the same way the contestant would be more inclined to guess on lower value questions than higher value ones).

Even a flat fee of £1000 for a right answer, for example, doesn't avoid the problem that it's still in their interest to guess if they don't know the answer.

So the question is: how do you incentivise a phone-a-friend who isn't actually a friend (i.e. who wouldn't care if you lost money)?

* - also out of interest, does anyone know how this works? Are the phone a friends actually all just out the back of the studio? Surely they don't actually send someone to sit with them all (how many friends are you allowed?) wherever they may be?

Before you go on Ryan gives you a $ amount he is happy to be on the hook for. Let's say it's $1k.
If you ring him on the 16k question, and he gets it wrong, he gives you 1k, or 1/7th of the cost (capped at 1/1). If he gives you the correct answer, he gets 1/7th of the gain, so 8k/7 = $1,142.

It breaks for the 32k question so you'd have to agree a fixed price for that one.

You can also build in a confidence % which will just dial down their liability/upside by that %.

The benefit is that they are always facing exactly the same value proposition as you. The drawback might be that they go a bit more conservative... but if I'm the phone-a-friend I'd probably stake all the money I have on the basis that I can dial down my confidence to 0% (assuming that I am 100% confident that I know what I know and 100% confident in your ability to read the question properly).

I remember reading somewhere that one of the Chasers/Eggheads (can't remember which, and it was years ago so possibly before they became that) was once approached by an acquaintance and offered a flat fee to be their phone-a-friend. The Chaseegg rejected the proposal, arguing that a fairer price would be a fixed percentage (say 10%) of the contestant's final winnings, if they're called. This would be irrespective of whether they knew the answer.

This seems fair to me. If you won £250k but needed help on the £16k question, you still wouldn't have won the £250k without that help. And if the phone-an-acquaintance knows that as soon as they pick up the phone they're getting a percentage of the contestant's winnings regardless, they've got exactly the same incentives as the contestant (albeit scaled down), no incentive to pretend to be surer about an answer than they are, and no awkward borderline cases if they have to say something like "it's either A or B".

I'd just find the appropriate number of real friends instead. Certainly I'd ask for something, but as a gesture of goodwill rather than make it a condition of my vocal appearance. If I were called for the £32k question on a 10% "tariff" as per Fowler's suggestion but I am then ignored and they get it wrong, £100 as opposed to £3,200, for example, is a huge difference and that wouldn't be my fault at all. You could argue it disincentivises the contestant to use you after all.

I'd just find the appropriate number of real friends instead. Certainly I'd ask for something, but as a gesture of goodwill rather than make it a condition of my vocal appearance. If I were called for the £32k question on a 10% "tariff" as per Fowler's suggestion but I am then ignored and they get it wrong, £100 as opposed to £3,200, for example, is a huge difference and that wouldn't be my fault at all. You could argue it disincentivises the contestant to use you after all.

I don't think it's likely that the contestant would go against the phone-a-friend's advice in this scenario. If you were the contestant, why would you call the quiz expert you recruited, knowing it would cost you a percentage of your winnings, just to ignore them?

What I meant was the contestant could be put in a position where they go, internally, "well, Graeme and Jon will know this, and I have to phone a friend, but since Graeme will cost me more than Jon, I'll go with Jon."

What I meant was the contestant could be put in a position where they go, internally, "well, Graeme and Jon will know this, and I have to phone a friend, but since Graeme will cost me more than Jon, I'll go with Jon."

What I meant was the contestant could be put in a position where they go, internally, "well, Graeme and Jon will know this, and I have to phone a friend, but since Graeme will cost me more than Jon, I'll go with Jon."